3.3: Parents: the marriage quakes

Both of my parents were to assure me, in later years, that there had been nothing wrong with their marriage prior to the war. Daphne has admitted to me that there was one short affair (with a famous film actor,) but she was leaving me to suppose, on that occasion, that the rest had been just flirtation. She was to qualify this line in a subsequent conversation, by telling me how she had been seduced (somewhat against her inclination) by the father of a schoolfriend of mine. But she added that she went home and told Henry all about it, and that the incident was promptly put behind them. "That was the way we settled such matters." she confided.

When I was having a similar conversation with Henry, he displayed some doubts about the degree of Daphne's fidelity, but was still adamant that the marriage had been all the success it was proclaimed to be in the eyes of society at large. Yet he also stated that he used to feel uncomfortable on their social outings together, in that Daphne (by way of contrast) appeared so much at home within such large gatherings, with an effervescent ease in conversation, whereas he regarded himself as being excruciatingly shy in those circumstances: essentially tongue-tied unless people came up to talk to him about himself. The modest side of him could never permit him to believe that people might be interested in his personality, as such, rather than in the aura of Longleat which, if they knew about it, surrounded him.

Stuck out there in the Middle East, and without any special admiration for ladies other than the type he met on the London social scene, Henry's sex-life was non-existent. Or in point of fact he told me once that he reverted to masturbation. But the situation in Daphne's case had of course been very different. There was a different attitude prevailing than there had been in peace time. The men you escorted might well be on the casualty list tomorrow, so every occasion was regarded potentially as (for them) the last chance. They had best enjoy life whilst still they might. And it was all part of the war effort, so to speak, for British women to ensure that their menfolk went to war in a satisfied frame of mind. They would fight better that way, potentially to protect those they left behind from the barbaric ravages of invading Huns.

Daphne had always been renowned as a vivacious party hostess, and this reputation did not fail her in time of war. Sturford Mead became a haven for officers training in the vicinity, (at Warminster, Tilshead, Lulsgate and such places,) to receive relaxing entertainment over a week-end's leave. A small succession of infidelities may have occurred during this period. But Daphne herself was to tell me later that these situations were more likely to occur up in London. It was a question of getting caught by an air raid when you were in someone else's house. It then became desirable to find some pleasant way of passing such an enforced period of house detention.

Sometimes it was just a matter of playing little games, devised by those who had been entrapped in such a lair. Daphne had much praise for Prince Dimitri Romanov (who was to marry Lady Millbank after her own husband had been killed,) in the games that he organised. For example, there was a game called `Sweeties'. He required everyone to pour the pills from any bottle that they carried into a hat. The contents were then redistributed at random, and swallowed immediately. Subsequent behaviour, if any different from that usually displayed, could then be attributed to the mixture of unknown drugs - without fault attributable to themselves.

I knew nothing at all about Daphne's London scene. The blitz of night-bombing was in progress, so we were never permitted to remain up there overnight. But I did see something of the week-end parties at Sturford, which never really struck me at the time as posing any threat to the stability of our family unit. And in all probability the highest jinks were reserved for those periods when her eldest children were away at school. But we knew how there had been rowdy parties during our absence and, on one occasion, we learnt how the drawing-room had caught fire during the night, undergoing much damage: at the height of which blaze an air raid warden had phoned to complain that the house was showing its lights.

Some of those at Sturford thrived upon the new libertine atmosphere, and none more than Mrs Sims - or `Simbags' as Daphne had now affectionately dubbed her. The dinnertime guests were no doubt generous to her, and she knew how to solicit their tips with impromptu cabaret performances. It was a matter (as I've since been told) of her rushing in, when the port was on the table, wearing any item of military uniform that might have been left upon the hall table, to give her own genuinely Cockney if not strictly authentic version of Knees-up Mother Brown - or whatever. It all added to the desired atmosphere of everyone letting their hair down, so that her acts were invariably well appreciated.

Details were sparse as to what might be happening to Henry, out there in the Middle East. We gathered that he was not yet in action, so it came as a bit of a surprise to me when someone at Ludgrove (who was reading all that was available in the papers about the current battle of El Alemein,) enquired if my father was called Viscount Weymouth and, on my confirmation, showed me a piece of a few lines which stated that he had been wounded. A wound can be anything, even so light as a scratch, so I did not feel unduly perturbed. I had the feeling that, if it had been serious, then Mummy would have seen fit to tell me about it before it had appeared in the papers.

When Mr Barber did in fact call me aside after school lunch, as he imagined, to break the news to me in the gentlest possible manner, I was smiling throughout - as befits an occasion when a pupil discovers that he already knows something which his teacher assumes that he does not. And the poor man was quite evidently perplexed, in that Daphne had just phoned, asking him to break the news to me - with a warning that I might be emotionally distressed. No doubt he attributed my reaction to the sang-froid of the British aristocracy, accepting it thereafter as an example of how boys should behave.

After a period of convalescence out there in North Africa, came the surprise announcement that Daddy would be returning home to Britain. Everyone was in a flurry, preparing for his arrival, perhaps even more so than I appreciated at the time. One point which took me by surprise was the way Mummy rebuked me for knocking on her bedroom door before entering, proclaiming now that it was "all too silly". It made me wonder if she didn't recollect, as I did, that she herself had initially demanded that I do so.

The day came when Henry was actually back at Sturford with us, and we were all over him - treating him like a great war hero. It was only Val who didn't quite know how to react, since he couldn't really remember this man who had suddenly appeared at his bedside, claiming to be his father. (He had promptly dived beneath the bedclothes, and it had proved difficult to persuade him to re-emerge.) We all vied to sit next to Daddy at table, to an extent that Mummy felt emotionally neglected, if not betrayed. I can remember Henry reassuring her that it was only a phase, and wouldn't last. But for quite some while, it did: for several years in fact.

The truth of the matter is that both Christopher and myself were just entering upon that psychological phase of development when identification with the father should be regarded as quite natural. We were both discovering what our maleness involved, and there wasn't much which Mummy could teach us about that. We watched Daddy, and tried to emulate his behaviour in all respects. And his words of commendation were what we each inwardly craved.

There was also this feeling that I wanted Daddy to feel that I was on his side. There was some vague uncertainty in my mind as to whether Daphne had been living her life in accordance with their marital rules. It wasn't an area where I could pose any direct questions, so I did the next best thing in trying to make a joke about it - more or less just to see if Henry laughed, or took it to be no laughing matter. It must have been during his first week back at home with us, and we were serving ourselves to lunch from the sideboard in the dining-room. Without looking at him, I said: "There are masses of new men for you to get to know, Dad."

From the silence, I learnt that the subject was as delicate as I'd feared. Then Daphne began protesting that this was untrue; and when we were next alone together, she reproached me for saying things which could only make Daddy unhappy. Was that really the thought inside her head? I knew in my heart that there were relationships she wanted to keep hidden from his understanding. It evoked a memory of that occasion on `The Araguanay', when the nice man who had been playing with me suddenly became "the nasty man" - due to Henry's reappearance on the scene.

The honeymoon period in my relationship with Daddy didn't endure for very long. He announced quite curtly one day that it was time for disciplines to be reapplied. We seemed to have forgotten how to comport ourselves in public, and our table manners had gone to pieces. He wasn't troubled so much about Caroline, since he regarded her upbringing as the mother's responsibility, but as far as the boys were concerned, he was going to make it his business to see that we shed all our recently acquired bad habits, and got back into the old way of doing things.

Nor was it just ourselves with whom he found fault. The garden which had been his pride before the war, now showed signs of neglect. Mr Harris, the head gardener, was summoned to his study and fierce words were exchanged. The rumour lingered that it wasn't just on the subject of gardening. Mr Harris had managed to avoid enlistment in the armed services, after failing his medical. But it was well known locally that he had been comforting the wives of certain servicemen who were now fighting up at the front. I know not what exactly may have been said when Henry dismissed Mr Harris, but I do know that the gardener rounded upon me, when I crossed his path later that day, shouting abusive epithets at me for no apparent reason.

Although I didn't properly comprehend the situation at the time, Henry was reacting against the entire household with a reassertion of his dominance. He had learnt by now about all that had been going on in his absence, and there was a period perhaps, when the marriage might have seemed to be on the rocks. But the two of them eventually managed to work out a modus vivendi, even if infidelities were now to be accepted on either side.

Some twenty years later, I reencountered [mother's former lover]. He was more than a little well-wined at the time, and eager to converse with me on the subject of old times. He made me promise to tell my mother that she hadn't kept faith with him. He told me that he had only agreed to let her go back to my father, if she promised that she would make the marriage work, and never to divorce him. In his inebriated mood, [X] kept repeating that the subsequent divorce was tantamount to a deception of himself. But when I passed on his words to Daphne, she took them quite lightly.

Somewhere or other, deep down inside me, a potential schism had been opened up, with me looking in both parental directions, conscious of my roots and yet uncertain if they were truly cohesive. Essentially my loyalties were still with Daphne. But there was a feeling in my mind that she was liable not to have any of the right answers: a lack of profundity perhaps, and a suspect vehicle for the emotional investment involved in any serious quest for my own identity.

Wanted, important, I'd been flaunted and vaunted to heights
unenlightened, where your love still had brightened
the nest for this fright-prone fledgling, dodging
the truncheoning dogmas of the daddy's curmudgeonly jaws.
I was your achievement, and the glory had glossed off
in a soft glow on my old puerile shoulders.
It was folded into tender missives from your distant presence,
digressed erratic from a vibrant social tribe.
Imbibing glib understanding from your shallow
chalice, I'd slurped a glut of goodies to nourish
my flourishing self-esteem, seemingly bold
and invulnerable, moulding abundant zeal for success.
How disconcerting then for me to find
the trivial vanity within your mind.

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